Press Start To Continue
by MeowzieChan
Summary: There are still loose ends to tie up, now that Chronicle has ended. Some loose ends are more… mundane, compared to the ones left by their job. Loose ends like getting their own lives back to something comparatively normal, for one.
1. Load Previous Save File

It's been a month since Masamune Dan was stopped. It's been three weeks since The Press Conference. Of course, there are still loose ends to tie up, now that Chronicle has ended. Some are professional – working to prevent further outbreaks, finding a way to restore the victims who are trapped as data, and so on.

Some loose ends are somewhat more… mundane.

The Riders getting their _own_ lives back to something comparatively normal, for one.

* * *

"Ugh. Long day. Man, I might actually need to sleep tonight." Kiriya rolls his shoulders, trying to relax. "Probably going have to use the bench downstairs, since it's not like Genm ever bothers to shut up." As he exits the elevator, two figures rush past him onto it, paying him absolutely no mind. One in a white coat, and one in a black one.

After pausing to process this, Kiriya shakes his head and heads up the stairs, yelling. "So that theory was right, then? You better not be taking all the credit for this one!"

"Hi, Kiriya!" A familiar, and sorely missed, voice chirps.

"Hey there, Poppy!" Kiriya laughs. "Long time, no see. Hey, where's-" He notices the Bugvisor on the table. "Oh, never mind. He's already gotten himself grounded."

"That's not funny, Kujo! Poppy, let me out!"

"No."

"Come on!"

Kiriya snorts. "If you're in there, you're in there for a reason, and you know it. Heeeey, does this thing have a mute button?" He picks up the visor and starts turning it around, ignoring the protests from inside. "Maybe I can get a quiet night for once."

"Kiriya..."

 _'...Whoops.'_

"Kiriya, are you still living here?" Oh, no. Poppy sounds absolutely heartbroken.

"Eh heh, well, kinda, yeah. I mean, there wasn't a better choice while all that stuff was going on with Chronicle, since I had been kinda 'missing' since December, and didn't really have an apartment anymore." Kiriya shrugs. "And then I got included on the List of the Lost with 'Mr. God' over here, so… I'm kinda stuck here."

"Does anyone other than the two of you actually _know_ that you've been staying here?"

Neither of them reply. Nobody ever wants to face a disappointed Poppy.

"Boys."

""No.""

"And why not?"

"Would you believe me if I said it never came up?"

"Really, Kiriya?"

"…Right. Stupid question on my part. I mean, it _hasn't_ , but stupid question."

Aaand there's the _frustrated_ Poppy face. Aw, man.

"I'm guessing there's no keeping you from telling anyone?" he asks hopefully.

"Nope."

 _'Drat.'_

"Well, what about _you_? We've been using your old room as Genm's cell, so where are you going to stay?"

"You could always just let me go!" a muffled voice comes from the Bugvisor, where it's upside down on the table.

""Not a chance.""

Poppy pouts. "You have a point, though. We're going to have to bring this up when Emu and Parad get back..."

* * *

"I should hope this doesn't need to be said, but you are being allowed to work with CR on a _provisional_ basis."

"I understand completely, Secretary Hinata."

"Doctor Kyotaro, I'm still not sure that's entirely justif-"

"Emu, quit trying to help. Right now, I'm just grateful I _exist_ , anything on top of that is just a _bonus_."

The entirety of the CR team is on a conference call with the Ministry of Health, discussing the latest... 'expansions to the roster', so to speak.

"Yes, well," Hinata clears his throat. "If there is nothing additional to discuss, then-"

"Actually, Sir? There _is_ something else that needs to be talked about." All eyes turn to Poppy, who's frowning. "We need to – oh, just a moment." With a brief flash of pink-and-green lights, Asuna continues. "We need to figure out where we Bugsters are going to stay. If this is any sort of long-term arrangement, then I don't believe it's at all practical for the three of us to live here in the office."

"Poppyyy… Don't you mean the _four_ of us?" Kuroto whines, from his virtual cell.

She turns and glares. "It's _Asuna_ right now, thank you very much, and _you_ were not being included in that number _on purpose_."

"Hold on, hold on." Taiga speaks up from his side of the conference call. "If you're not including Genm, then who's the third Bugster you're talking about?"

Kiriya reluctantly raises his hand from the back of the room. "That. That would be me. I've been staying here since I stopped working with Masamune Dan."

Reactions are varied.

There's surprise – apparently neither Hiiro _or_ his father had managed to notice. Which is actually really sad, seeing how Director Kagami is _literally the head of the hospital._

There's indecision – looks like Taiga _wants_ to say something, but is well aware he doesn't have much room to speak here, given the largely open secret that he stays at _his_ clinic more nights than not.

There's frustration – Poppy again, along with _Nico_ of all people, who is looking back and forth at Kiriya and Taiga, alternately glaring at them both.

And… Oh no. Yup, Emu's disappointed face has made an appearance. That's just as bad as Poppy's. Worse, really, because Emu is quickly on his way to either joining or outright _replacing_ Poppy as the mom friend, but doesn't seem to have actually _noticed_ that fact yet.

"I mean, that's still better than the warehouse Graphite and I were hanging out in during the second half of Chronicle, so-" Parad stops. "I shouldn't have mentioned that."

Welp. At least the disappointment is being split between two people now.

The room is silent for a few moments, everyone clearly thinking. Secretary Hinata clears his throat. "Miss Karino and Mister Kujo bring up a valid point. We will, of course, have to look into a solution for this… dilemma, but it will take an amount of time."

"...Or..." Emu's brow creases in thought. "Or people could just, you know, move in together." He looks over at Parad. "I mean, I kind of assumed that once your probation was up we would, you know, share a place. It makes sense, right?"

Rubbing the back of his neck, he continues. "Mind you, I'd have to find a bigger place, since I've only got one bedroom, and that'll take a while, but it's still a _plan_. If you guys want to, too..." His gaze wanders to Kiriya and Asuna.

"Hey!" Nico shouts, pushing Taiga out of view. "No way in hell are you _all_ going to M's place!" She points at the camera. "Poppy, you're my roommate now, no take backs."

Pastel lights flash, stream into one of the monitors at CR, and out of one at the clinic. Poppy appears, grabbing Nico's hand in her own. "Nico! You really mean that?"

"Duh!" Nico laughs. "No way am I leaving the only other girl here to have to deal with these losers everyday _outside_ of work!"

Poppy latches onto Nico, hugging her. "Thank you so much!"

(Kiriya is pretty sure he hears Taiga muttering off screen, something about "Don't mind me, I don't know what goes on here, not as though it's _my_ office or anything...")

Hinata clears his throat again, apparently trying to reassert some semblance of order to the situation. "Yes, well, we will look into that... idea, as well. That will be all for today." He exits the conference call.

"Well! You heard him! That's all, so back to work!" Director Kagami nods sharply, before heading out himself.

People start moving in their own directions after that, the monitor that had displayed Taiga's end of the conference blinking back into into its screensaver. While most everyone is wandering off, Kiriya notices Emu jump slightly, then pull out his phone, looking at it with an unreadable expression. "Something up?"

"Oh, uh." Emu looks over, hastily putting said phone back to sleep mode. "Nothing, just one of those automatic alerts. Didn't expect it, that's all."

"Uh- _huh_. If you say so."

* * *

 _-That evening-_

"Emu?" Parad blinks. "What're you doing here?"

"Until the ministry gets the apartment situation settled, I'm not leaving you guys here by yourselves."

Kiriya shakes his head. "You don't have to do that, Ace. It's not like the four of us really sleep all that much."

"Yeah, but I _want_ to. Besides, if the three of us are going to be sharing an apartment soon _anyway_ , we might as well start getting used to it now." Emu sets a small suitcase off to the side of the office. "Makes sense, right?"

"Well..." Parad looks surprised. "Yeah, but..."

"But, nothing." Another voice answers. "Guy's got the right idea. Someone wanna help me with this? I can't get it up these stupid stairs by myself."

Poppy gets off the chair she'd draped herself over. "Nico?!"

"No, you think? Seriously, I can't make it around the turns without someone on the other end."

"O-okay, I'll be right there." Poppy darts downstairs. "What _is_ this? How'd you even get in here without Taiga?"

"I've got my own code now, duh. Same way I was able to get this from where the ministry was holding all of Genm and Parad's stuff." Nico backs around the top of the staircase. "Who designed this place, anyway? Why the spiral staircase?"

"I've been wondering that for the last year. Let me help, here." Emu goes to help the girls bring Nico's item up into the room. "There."

Poppy comes back in, bringing up the rear. "I can understand you having an access code, since it looks like you're working for Taiga, but how would that let you get a hammock of all things?"

"A _what_?" Parad jumps up, darting over. "Nico, how'd – what – where – why'd you get my old hammock?"

Nico shoots an accusatory look at the others. "You haven't told them?"

"I don't acknowledge your position!"

"Knock it off and deal, Kuroto." Emu rolls his eyes. "We've only had one day. There hasn't been enough time to catch them up on everything yet." He turns to Poppy and Parad. "It's not quite that Nico's working for Taiga, and kinda more like we're working for _her_."

Kiriya chimes in. "Nico's majority holder in Genm Corp now. She's the one who got Kobochi instated as the new CEO."

"Wait, who?" Parad looks confused.

"You mean Tsukuru?!" Poppy beams. "He's the one who originally created Burgermon! Nico, that's great!"

"I know, right?"

"So," Kiriya resumes, "since CR's a joint effort between Genm Corp and the Ministry of Health, and Nico's kind of a big deal now..."

"I'm technically one of your bosses." Nico grins. "I mean, I'd figured it'd mostly be a title, but I actually wound up with a lot more pull than I expected."

"Awww~!" Poppy coos. "Look at you! Being all responsible!" She squeals, grabbing Nico in a hug.

"Well, _someone_ had to step in," Nico laughs, trying to squirm out of Poppy's grip. "I couldn't just let the place crash when everyone still needs you guys out here. C'mon, let go!"

Poppy gives one final squeeze before letting go. "Thank you, Nico. For that, and all your help before, and for letting me move in with you, and just. The general everything."

Grinning cheekily, Nico laughs. "Like I said, not leaving you alone. Many have tried to rid themselves of me, none have succeeded."

Kiriya cackles as Emu gives an incredibly fake gasp.

"But..." Parad speaks back up, quietly. "That doesn't explain why you'd help _me_."

"Eh," Nico shrugs. "M's willing to vouch for ya. He's not always the _best_ judge of character." (Emu mock-gasps again.) "But he's usually pretty good at it.

"'Sides." She sombers a bit. "You were willing to sacrifice yourself to give the guys a chance to take down Cronus and Gemdeus. That's worth a ton of points towards a redemption arc, if ya ask me."

" _Anyway._ " Kiriya attempts to lighten the mood. "It has been a _long_ day for pretty much everyone, so we should _probably_ figure out the actual sleeping arrangement in here. I know I'd prefer it if you two-" he points at Poppy and Parad "-don't pass out where you stand."

"Wait, wait, hang on, hang on." Emu holds his hands up, pausing the conversation. "Is that actually a thing? Can Bugsters actually pass out? Without having been in a battle or anything?"

"Technically, yeah, it's a possibility." Kiriya scratches the back of his head. "Still technically physical beings, after all. I mean, I know I don't need nearly as much sleep as when I was human, and I'm assuming that full Bugsters need even less, but it's definitely still necessary."

"Neither of you get to say that it only applies to Kujo and myself, for the record." Kuroto points out from his cabinet. "I maintained data regarding _everything_. Including when each Bugster first came into existence, and what happened after."

Poppy bites her lip, folding her hands in her lap. "Why am I not surprised?"

Parad nods. "It's true, though. I dunno about you, Poppy, but I know that after I was separated from Emu… well. About a day later, I just sort of… collapsed. Apparently I was unconscious for, what, four days?" He looks over for confirmation, to which Kuroto nods. "Yeah, four days. We tried to warn Graphite, when he took over Miss Momose, but he didn't listen to us, and two days after that he dropped like a rock for another three."

Shifting uncomfortably, Parad continues. "As far as I know, none of the others were really around for long enough at once for it to make a difference. _I'm_ still not sure where Lovelica came from, but I'm guessing he dealt with it too? Um… basically, I guess that creating a body pretty much from scratch is _really_ energy intensive, so, yeah, Poppy and me are gonna need to rest sooner, as opposed to later, or else that's probably gonna happen again."

"On my end, when I got revived?" Kiriya waves. "I got warned, and actually knew to _try_ to rest, and got away with only being out for… Eh, I think it was about a day. I dunno, maybe because I'm still kinda human but kinda not it went differently?" He shrugs. "But yeah, outside of being digital constantly like certain jerks, Bugsters do need to sleep at least _some_. That first time after starting to exist is an outlier, but being on the corporeal plane has it's standard practices."

Emu squints at Parad. "So, what you guys are saying is that if you and Poppy don't wake up in the morning, we shouldn't panic."

"Yeah." Parad confirms. "Pretty much."

"Good to know."

* * *

Eventually, conversation turns to updating Poppy and Parad on the assorted events of the past month, and then gives way to discussing plans for when their new apartments are acquired.

"We should let us see if they'll let us set up in the same building." Nico brings up. "It'll be a lot easier if we want to hang out or anything, and if they want to get a hold of everyone it'd be a whole lot faster."

Parad tilts his head, blinking. "So… you and Emu _are_ actually friends now?"

Emu laughs. "Well, it's a work in progress, but yeah. Seeing how we were the only two gamers involved in everything that… well, that made it out as far as we _knew_ , of course we'd to try and get along. Turns out that when she's _not_ on a roaring rampage of revenge, Nico makes a pretty good gaming partner. Also seeing as she's one of my bosses, I figured it was a good idea to stay on her good side."

"I'd be more offended if I hadn't been tracking you down for six years." Nico yawns. "Sorry. I've got class tomorrow, so… I should probably turn in soon."

Kiriya chuckles. "Eh, we should _all_ probably turn in at this point." He pauses, looking at Parad. "Wait, hang on..."

"Oh!" Emu seems to come to the same realization. "You're _always_ in that jacket, aren't you?"

"Yeah. So?"

Poppy narrows her eyes. "Well, _that_ won't do. Come on. Lesson time." Grabbing a protesting Parad by the arm, she turns to Emu and Kiriya. "The level three gashats are still kept here, right?"

Nervously laughing, Kiriya points at one of the cabinets. "Yeah, over there. Not like any of us used 'em that often, so they get left here."

"Great!" She grabs one, activating it.

 ** _~Doremifa Beat!~_**

"Let's go!"

"Wait, hang on, what are you-" Poppy drags Parad into the game world.

"Uh." Nico cautiously looks at the others. "D'you think she's gonna teach him how to do that costume thing?"

"Looks like it." Emu shakes his head. "This ought to be good."

* * *

About twenty minutes, and most everyone else getting prepped later, the two finally emerge.

"Ta-da~!"

"Poppy. It's not that I don't appreciate the help, because I do. But how… where did this come from?"

Poppy is now wearing a frilly nightgown in her usual yellow, with pink and green music notes patterned across it, to absolutely no-one's surprise.

Parad is hiding his face in his hands. _He_ is in a kigurumi, to everyone's surprise, apparently including his own.

A kigurumi that looks an _awful lot_ like the first phase of Ex-Aid's Double Action Gamer form.

"Oh no, that's _adorable_." Nico grins. "Didn't know you liked kigus."

"Please stop."

"But it's so _you_!"

"Nico, I am begging you to stop." Parad whines, keeping his face buried.

"Well, she's not exactly wrong on either count, is she?" Kiriya's biting back his laughter, with little success.

"You all suck."

Emu darts around to inspect Parad's new outfit. "Huh. It's not quite the same as the level X form, though, is it?"

"Emu, what're you doing?"

"I wanted to see something. Check this out." He tugs the hood over Parads head.

"Hey!"

"Ha! Cool! Nico's right, it's _literally_ you – the helmet's entirely in your orange, not the orange _and_ blue that it usually is before we split into two." Emu turns to the room. "Anyone know where there's a mirror or something?"

"Can do you one better, Ace." Kiriya goes to grab his laptop. "Webcam. Plus-" He grins. "We can get a picture of you two together."

"Why this?" Parad sighs, pulling the hood over his eyes.

* * *

Kiriya is disturbed from dozing by an incessant tapping sound. It's faint, but rapid, and very definitely there.

Grimacing, he reluctantly opens his eyes. Parad is sitting on the floor, knees curled to his chest and his back up to the wall. He's got one arm wrapped around his knees, and the other tapping a rhythm on the floor.

Everyone else is asleep, or close to it anyway. Even Kuroto's the quietest he gets, a muffled typing sound coming from his cell.

"Hey. I _thought_ you were gonna try and sleep tonight."

Parad startles, flinching before looking slightly in Kiriya's direction. He shrugs.

"I mean, I know that this isn't the first time you've, uh, came into existence. But you were 'gone' for a month, and speaking from experience, coming back from the dead is _mentally_ exhausting, too. Plus, you went straight into a fight besides that."

Another shrug.

Kiriya sighs, and gets up from the spare cot they'd dragged in, going to sit next to Parad. "What's eatin' ya, kid?"

"I'm not a _kid_."

"Well, I'm still older'n you and the ace, so yes you are."

Parad pouts a little at that, but doesn't say anything else.

"Alright, guessing game time, then." Kiriya makes a show of thinking. "Well, ya might be wondering what game releases you missed while you were away. There's nothing, by the way, if you've got the same taste as Emu and Nico. They were complaining the other day that the whole industries in a dry spell."

Parad shakes his head.

"No? Okay. Maybe you're confused as to how Nico became a stockholder?"

"No, that makes sense. I looked her up when she started being a contender in Chronicle. She's _good_ , won a lot of huge tournaments, and could definitely afford it if she'd been saving up. Besides, I figure a lot of people would have pulled out after everything happened, so she could get even more than otherwise."

"True enough. So, if it's not that…

"Then my money says you're trying to figure out why you're not locked up like Mister Delusions of Godhood over there." He nods sharply in the direction of the game cell, as Parad curls further in on himself, hiding his face and nodding.

"I'm not _deluded_ , Kujo. I. am. a."

"Shut it, the adults are talking."

"Hmph."

"I just," Parad whispers, "I don't get it. I killed a _lot_ of people, right in front of Emu, and now he's nice to me, even after that, and that doesn't make sense."

Kiriya looks over towards Emu, who was ostensibly sleeping on the couch. He had one eye open, watching the discussion, and is moving to get up. Hastily, Kiriya tries to motion him to stand down.

 _'Come on, Ace, let him get this out. Doubt he'd say a thing about this if he knew you were listening. Just wait.'_

Emu gets the unspoken gist, nods, and settles back down, still watching out of the corner of his eye.

"I didn't – still don't understand why Emu's being so forgiving, or why any of you are putting up with me, when by all rights you should all hate me _at a minimum_." Parad raises his head enough to look at Kiriya.

"And the terms of all this? I _got away_ with one month of being limited to staying here, unless I'm accompanied by two other people, or for going off with Emu to be Para-DX?" His voice hitches as he digs his hand into his hair. "That's. That's absurd, why is that so _lenient_ , I. It doesn't... it doesn't make sense."

"Ah, geez… Emu's not the only person here who vouched for you."

"What?!" Parad's voice gets a little louder than the hushed tone they'd both been using, before he winces and quiets back down. "Who would do that?!"

"Most of us, actually. Only reason we don't have anything from Poppy is that she wasn't available either.

"There's... look, there's a lot of records _just_ about the six years between you two being separated and Emu putting on that driver, when you were staying at Genm Corp. There's even more records from after that, and... well,"

"I kept track of you two for ten years, as well. How did you _think_ Hojo was brought to Zaizen?" Kuroto has stopped typing again, keeping his voice low. "As if I would let all that work go to waste."

"You're an _ass_." Kiriya glares.

"Seeing as you won't listen, I won't bother making any claims to the contrary." He resumes typing.

Kiriya groans. " _Anyway_." He softens again. "The whole 'one month provisional trial period' thing is more of a formality than anything else."

Emu's eyes widen a bit, not moving enough to make it obvious that he's awake if someone wasn't already watching, but Parad's are doing the same, so. Yeah.

 _'Oh, right, we didn't tell Emu about any of this, did we? Welp. No time like the present.'_

"Parad. You're considered a victim in this about as much as anyone. The one month isn't entirely 'probation.' It's a little of that, yeah, on account of the copious violence, but it's more an 'observation period.' We want to make sure you two idiots are _safe_."

Both of them clench their fists – Parad gripping his sleeves, Emu gripping his blanket.

"How did you get that set up in less than a day?"

 _'All or nothing, Kiriya.'_

"We didn't. We've been working this out over the month since everything ended."

 _(thump)_

"A month?!" Emu's fallen off the sofa. "You- you guys knew about him for a _month_ and didn't say anything?!"

"E-Emu! You're awake?"

"I've _been_ awake, more to the point, you all _knew_ Parad was here?!"

Kiriya looks away, uncomfortable. "Less _knew_ and more _strongly suspected_. We didn't say anything 'cause if we were wrong... well, we didn't want to get your hopes up if we were wrong."

"But a month?!"

"HEY!"

All eyes turn to Nico, who's glaring at them from her sleeping bag.

"Those of us who are still _baseline human_ have classes tomorrow, and would like to sleep. SHUT. UP." She flumps back down, folding her pillow over her ears. "Hmph."

"Sorry Nico..." comes from around the room.

"Kinda resent some of the implications there," Emu mutters. "But she's probably not entirely _wrong…_ probably couldn't have been counted as 'normal human' since I was like ten..."

"Maybe you two could have the emotional breakdown over all this in the morning?" Poppy chimes in.

Parad whimpers. "You were still awake, too?"

"Rhythm game. You were tapping, and I recognized the song. Do the math." She yawns. "Kiriya's right, though, you should be way more tired than any one except maybe Emu and Nico. Get some _sleep._ "

"...kay."

* * *

 **End Notes:**

Hey guys! New fic time!

This story comes in right where episode 45, and thus Event Flag XX, left off. And yes, I _could_ have made this and Event Flag one story. However, Event Flag has a specific style to it, and is intended to be a stand-alone work. It wouldn't function well as a 'first chapter.'

My goal here? Character interactions, worldbuilding, fun, the works. This work is, like my other Kamen Rider fics, part of my "Riders (Re)United" universe. I'm just... you know, working from two different points on the timeline. Try and Re-Build is the main storyline, and this is... let's call it 'backstory'.


	2. Resume Game

Slowly, Emu starts to wake up. This... this is _not_ his room. Where – hang on, why is he on the couch at CR? Also, he sleeps on his back more often than not, so why is he face down?

"What the-"

Something's weighing down one of his arms, the one that's dangling off the side of the couch. Blinking the sleep further from his eyes, he looks to see what the issue is.

"It wasn't... that wasn't a dream..." Tired, relieved laughter starts to bubble over. "They're really here..."

At some point during the night, Parad had moved his hammock to run up against the couch. Even though he's sound asleep, he's holding tight onto Emu's hand like it's a lifeline.

Judging from the cramp in his fingers, Emu's pretty sure that until he woke up and tried to move, he was doing the same.

"Ah, you're awake. Good afternoon."

"Huh?"

Hiiro's at the table with his back to Emu, apparently reading through case files. "According to the coroner, the two of you have been asleep since about one am. Poppy's been awake for about an hour; she's with Nico at the moment. It's four in the afternoon now, for the record."

"What- oh, man, my shift-"

"Settle down. You were scheduled to be here regardless. Actually." He taps a stack of papers together, straightening them. "You're now scheduled to be here for a week. Solid. Both Parad _and_ yourself are being kept under observation for the time being."

"...I suppose I should have seen that coming, shouldn't I?"

"You really ought to have. It's not as if this is the first time this has happened, after all."

Emu looks over at Hiiro suspiciously. Well, he looks as far over as he _can_ from his position. He's still laying on his stomach, not wanting to try and move his arm away from Parad. ...Also, he's kind of dizzy, which makes sense if he's been asleep for that long. "What do you mean?"

"We're working under the assumption that your... impromptu nap... is – well, _was_ – essentially your body 'resetting' back to only having _you_ present, as opposed to you _and_ him. The first time, of course, is when you were initially separated seven years ago."

"So that's the only reason I'm here?"

"Don't be ridiculous. Kujo said last night that we were making sure _the two of you_ were safe, didn't he?"

Hiiro finally turns to face Emu. He's smiling, which is actually really disconcerting.

' _Oh wow, I see why Taiga was not okay with him being so polite. It's really strange.'_

"...Yeah, he did. Was everyone in on _this_ , too?"

"Of course. We made several contingency plans."

"That explains the text last night." Emu mutters. Noting Hiiro's confused expression, he continues. "Taiga sent me a message last night, right after the conference call, telling me to 'find an excuse to stay at CR overnight.' Seriously, you guys could have just come out and _told_ me, I'd have listened."

Hiiro looks unimpressed.

"Okay, fine, I'd _most like_ _ly_ have listened. I wasn't about to leave Parad alone anyway, so whatever."

Tilting his head to acknowledge the point, Hiiro turns back to the desk. "Would you like me to get you something to eat? It's been a while, after all."

"...No thanks, I'll wait. I'm still kind of tired, probably going to nod back off soon." Grinning, Emu looks back down. "Besides, I can't really get up while I'm being clung to like this, and I probably wouldn't be able to pry him off if I wanted to. Which, honestly? I don't."

"Suit yourself."

* * *

By evening, Parad has woken up, and both he and Emu are sitting at the table.

"Soooo..." Emu turns a mug of cocoa around in his hands. "It turns out that we're _both_ on office arrest."

Parad startles at that. "How come? Did something happen?"

"Not… exactly." Emu scratches the back of his head. "It turns out that my staying here was another one of those plans the others didn't tell me about. I wound up 'ensuring' that I was grounded when I was asleep almost as long as you were.

"Apparently when the same thing happened the first time around, the actual doctors involved, who weren't from Next Genome, assumed it was just regular exhaustion. Nobody thought of it at the time as something related to the whole infection thing."

"That makes sense." Parad's voice is quiet. "Nobody aside from Kuroto and Cronus knew that the Bugsters – that _I_ existed."

"Yeah. ...I wish I'd known about you sooner, you know?" Emu says, subdued. "I could've gotten you out of there, or something, could've helped before you went all... revenge against humanity-y."

"It was a little late for that." Parad laughs emptily. "I'd already killed four people by then."

"What do you- _oh_. Zaizen and his assistants?"

He nods. "They were- I don't know what they were doing, but they were doing it _wrong_ , I could _tell_ , and it hurt. And I didn't know there was an _us_ then, I didn't even know that _I_ existed, I was still emyou/em, but I had to make them _stop_ and..."

"And you reacted?"

"Mm-hm. I lashed out, and suddenly there I was. I'm sorry..."

"Hey, don't apologize for existing. Especially if it happened because you were just scared. But, thinking about all of that, I just realized something. Kuroto really shouldn't have been as surprised as he was to come back as half Bugster." Emu looks up at the ceiling. "There was already precedent."

"Eh? Are you trying to change the topic? Because it's not gonna work, since I killed _him_ , too, and I did it on purpose that time."

"No, no, not that part. Hear me out." Emu points at Parad. "After you." He pauses. "...No, WE. Like you said, at that point, there was no _us_ , so I should take the responsibility too."

"Wha- Emu, no!"

"M, YES. For all we know, it could just as easily have been me that wound up being a new person. I mean, we grew up as the same guy." Emu shrugs. "I – _we_ were a lot more like _you_ as Genius Gamer M, after all. If you were..." he pauses. "more prominent? I guess? If you were more prominent during the tournament, maybe that's why you were pulled out. If we'd collapsed when I was the one with more influence, maybe I'd be the one teleporting around instead."

"Emu, that's ridiculous."

"Well, it's not like we'll ever really know, now is it? So, back on track. After WE erased Zaizen and his flunkies, they came _back_. Remember how he became 'Doctor Pac-man?'"

"Right, all four of them were part Bugster. … Y'know, I'm _super_ pissed they dragged Pac-man into it."

"I _know_ , right?! That was completely uncalled for. But I'm assuming you and Kuroto were watching the fight I was in, right?"

"He was watching more of it than I was. I paid more attention to what Hatena was doing than to Zaizen. Kuroto used the data from him to help make Perfect Puzzle." Parad scratches his cheek. "I, uh, was also hiding when they invaded the office, on account of the whole 'having killed them' thing. I didn't think it was a good idea to let them see me."

"Yeah, that makes sense." Emu shrugs. "But they came after him to get the proto-Gashats, and they used them the same way that Graphite did.

"So since they were at least partially Bugsters, then _why_ Kuroto so surprised that _he_ came back that way? The main difference in the situation is that he made failsafes and backup plans to make sure he didn't stay dead. So, he knew that it was a possibility, and he _didn't expect to not be human?"_

Parad shrugs. "Well, he's never exactly been _stable_. We're living proof of that."

"Mm, true enough. ...Hey, the gamer drivers monitor everything we do while transformed, right?"

"Yeah, I thought you already knew that."

"Well, I've never had access to any of the data." Emu exhales, exasperated. "I'm wondering what it would take to find out what mine recorded that day, when Zaizen came back as 'Doctor Pac-man'. Because _apparently_ I'm the one who defeated him, but I have absolutely no idea how I did it."

"Wait, wait, wasn't there someone else with you? What did I hear his name was... Ghost, right?"

"Yeah, but he didn't tell me anything about what happened at the end of the battle." Pursing his lips, Emu tries to think back. "…Hm. The last part of the fight that I actually _remember_ was getting thrown across the room, as myself, and Takeru was getting what sounded like a new upgrade. After that, the next thing I know, I'm standing upright, as Ex-Aid, and Takeru was telling me that we won. I admit I _really_ should have asked for details once we got out of there, but there were more... urgent things to worry about at that point."

Parad nods hesitantly. "We can probably look it up, to see what happened. Not gonna lie, though, that's kinda weird."

* * *

"It cut out." The two gape at the screen. "The last point of activity that was recorded during the period I remember shows me getting knocked out of my transformation, and then the next one is me leaving Level Two."

"How could there not be a record of you going back _into_ being Ex-Aid, though?"

"I don't know, this is the first time I've even gotten to see how any of this information is displayed. And, I mean-" Emu gestures frustratedly. "There's about ten whole minutes where there's no data _at all_. The drivers are supposed to record the vitals of whoever wears them, as long as they're physically wearing them, even if we're not transformed. I would _not_ have taken it off in the middle of a battle, so why doesn't it have anything?"

"I don't _think_ Genm would have trimmed anything out... Hang on, let's check the records from the Bugvisor that Zaizen stole..."

* * *

Growling, Parad drums his fingers on the table. "Okay, so the data we _have_ shows when Hatena was destroyed, and the same for when Zaizen was, but it doesn't say _what stopped_ _them_. That's literally impossible, unless it was that Ghost kid who landed the finisher, since he isn't using the same technology and wouldn't be in the system."

"Well… When we were on the way out, he said that he had been the one to defeat Hatena. And since Takeru said that I saved Togo, that would imply that I defeated Zaizen. But he never said how I pulled it off, and, like I said earlier, we wound up being _really_ busy with a more pertinent problem immediately afterward."

"I guess we won't know what happened unless you guys can bring Zaizen back with all the others, or if Ghost tells you at some point."

"Guess not."

* * *

 _-the next day-_

"Okay, so we can agree that this is really awkward, right?"

Taiga glares at Emu. "Very much so. Now sit still, and shut up. I don't know why they let you leave here even to get anything in the first place." He frowns. "Not as though I'm one to talk... but I would have _thought_ thatthey'd have learned from my mistakes to stop you and Brave from doing shit like that."

"Hey, language."

"Oh, like you haven't heard worse, mister 'pro gamer'."

"We're at _work_." Emu shoots Taiga a judgmental look.

"Pfeh. _I'm_ at work, you mean. Need I remind you that _you_ are currently the patient here?"

Emu groans. "I know, I know." He's on the exam table in the CR patient ward. "Hence the awkwardness. I mean, I get the reasoning, and I agree with it, but. I just hate being on this end of the job."

"Welcome back to the hell that is being a doctor in need of care, I'll be your tour guide." Taiga rolls his eyes. "To your left, you'll see your own workstation, which you're banned from going to until they give you permission again. Story of our lives at this point."

"Ugh. How long did they say I was going to be down here for, again?"

"At least a week. Seriously, though, I do actually need you to turn to your left."

"Oh, right, got it. Wonder how they're going to handle my scheduled appointments up in pediatrics..." Emu mumbles as he obeys.

"Don't know, don't care, and you should be more concerned about the whole thing yesterday than you seem to be. To the right."

"Well, like they said, it's not the first time this has happened." Emu sombers. "Sorry if I scared everyone."

'Emu… if everyone is going to worry about him… why am I being kept around? It's my fault, after all...'

"Hey, Parad, quit that! I've told you, this is just part of who I am, and the same goes for you. Also, if you're gonna use the intercom, then you have to go closer to the mic; you're barely coming in."

He's met with dead silence.

"Um. Hojo?" Taiga sounds... nervous.

"What?"

"I didn't hear anything just then. What were _you_ hearing?"

 _(click)_

Asuna appears at the observation window. She _also_ looks nervous. "Emu, the intercom was off on this end. We can hear you, but you shouldn't be able to hear us. I only just turned it on."

Parad joins her. "I was talking to myself, I was just thinking out loud- what's going on?"

Emu gapes. "Wha- no, I definitely heard you! I mean, I haven't heard anyone else up there, and you were really muffled, but I definitely heard you blaming yourself. What do you mean this was the only end broadcasting?"

Kiriya chimes in over the intercom. "Uh, how about you get back to that exam, I'm gonna turn _both_ ends of this thing back off so we don't distract you guys, okay? Okay."

Both doctors downstairs nod, visibly shaken. "All right then." Taiga hesitates. "Not as though any of this is normal in the first place... That was the routine exam done, anyway. Lie down, let's get to the 'routine for here' exam."

"Okay..." As the scanner does it's first pass, he chuckles. "You know this thing doesn't actually _wor_ _k_ correctly on me, right? I mean, Hiiro tried the scope once, without telling me, but apparently all that showed up was a bunch of static."

 _(click)_

"Wait, when was that? Because if it was that time I took over, right after Genm spilled that you were infected, I might have messed up the readings. None of my data was put in the systems that you guys got."

Emu tries to sit up to look at the window, only to duck right back down as the machine starts to make its way back. "Kiriya, I thought you said you turned the intercom off?!"

"I did, got no idea what you said, Ace. I mean, I assume it was about something from when I wasn't around, but that's all from context clues."

"Lazer, what the hell? I could _definitely_ hear Emu just then."

"I didn't hear anything either, Parad." Asuna joins in. "Taiga, Emu, we're coming down. Something's going on here."

 _(click)_

Taiga turns to Emu. "You two can't go one day without dismantling everything we know about the game illness anymore, can you?"

Emu just sighs in resignation.

* * *

"So."

"Yeah. So."

"Gotta be honest, I wasn't really sure about it, but looks like I was right, that I was actually feeling _your_ terror before. I mean, there was _ever_ _y_ chance it was just _mutual_ , because what Masamune-"

"Cronus. He doesn't deserve to be called by his name."

"Alright then, Cronus. What he did to Lovelica was really messed up. I was scared too, so I started thinking that maybe I was projecting? And then I. Um." Emu casts a sideways glance at Parad. "Well, then we fought."

Parad nods. " _You_ fought, you mean. That was a terrible showing on my end. But… I guess that means you saw that, then. The dream? I mean, if you can call it that."

"… one where you're drowning, right?"

Parad nods again. "Mm. I'd been having that since... since Lovelica. When you took me down... right then, at that moment, it felt like you'd dropped me into an ocean, even more than before"

Emu looks down. "That one night, between doing… well, _that,_ and letting you back out, when you were here-" he reaches to his chest "- _I_ had that dream. Guess I got it from you." He smirks. "I should probably have realized you were here _again_ sooner, huh? I'd thought it was just survivors guilt, but I've been having that one again for the past month. It's longer now, though. It starts off the same, but now it keeps going, and I dive down to pull you out. It's at about that point I wake up."

"Well, you did. Pull me out of the dark, I mean. Twice now, even." Parad lightly punches Emu in the shoulder, a small smile on his face. "Thanks."

"We need a new topic. This is super depressing."

"Yeah."

They sit there, in the office, in silence for a bit.

"So, let's catch up, then. I hear they aren't even letting you do paperwork while you're here?"

"Nope!" Emu throws his hands in the air. "I am just _that_ incredibly grounded! I never thought it was possible to miss _paperwork_ , of all things." He slumps, letting his head hit the table. "I'm so bored, and it's only been a day and a half..."

"You're in full-on pediatrics when you're not working here now, right? How's that going?"

Emu turns his head, still on the table, but now he's grinning. "Okay, okay, so here's the thing. The kids have finally started to warm up to me. Somehow, word spread about my old career. Well, technically _our_ old gig, but they don't know about the whole _us_ situation. As you and I know full well, small children are always super excited to be _encouraged_ to talk about the things they like. Thing is, they're even _more_ excited that they can not only have an adult know and appreciate what they talk about, but an adult who can explain and prove to their parents that they aren't necessarily wasting their time when they play games."

He straightens back up. "And _then_ I led the press conference about what happened with Chronicle. Some people started putting two and two together, and now not only am I 'Doctor Hojo, who actually understands kids,' I'm 'Doctor Hojo, who is probably a real-life superhero.' I mean, if someone asks, I'm not allowed to say that I'm Ex-Aid, but I'm not exactly saying that I'm _not_ , either. It's way more useful to let the rumors run themselves than it is to confirm them outright."

"That's awesome!" Chuckling, Parad continues. "Okay, next. I _know_ they've seen you trip over thin air before. It pretty much goes without saying."

Emu grumbles at that. "That's cold, and I'd be offended if it weren't a thing that has definitely happened. Multiple times. In front of many small children. And coworkers."

"Hey, there's a _reason_ I teleport all the time, and it's to _not do that,_ just in case. So how do they all reconcile you being a hopeless klutz with you being a superhero?"

"Remember how 'Genius Gamer M' played it off, and made it look like it was on purpose?"

"Right, I think that was mostly you for that, rather than being my influence. It worked _really_ well as a disarming tactic for a while there, until our opponents got used to it. So then..." Parad laughs incredulously. "People think you're either exaggerating it, or faking the clumsiness completely."

"Yup! And I would like to keep it that way, thanks."

"Got it. Next… how're the people covering for you telling your patients you're not in?"

"If anything happens with a patient for the game illness, and someone asks questions regarding Ex-Aid, the stock answer is that I'm 'monitoring a person of interest in protective custody.' Which is _technically_ true. They're just leaving out that there's _two_ people, and that I'm one of them. If it's a kid asking, one who's one of my 'normal' patients, and they ask if I'm not in because I'm busy being Ex-Aid, the cover is that I'm on 'superhero bodyguard duty.'"

Parad laughs. "That's sneaky, and I love it."

"The _official_ reason that we marked down for my leave of absence is 'medical leave'. You want to know what I'm calling it, though?" A warm smile slowly spreads on Emu's face as Parad shakes his head. "Family reunion."

"…!" Blinking, Parad looks away. "...Last question. Do you really mean that?"

Emu puts his arm around Parad's shoulder. "Of course. We _are_ brothers, after all."

"… … Thank you."


	3. Side Quest

"Hey..." Emu begins, cautiously. "Can we go pick up some things from my apartment? It's going to get _really_ boring at night with nothing to do around here." He clasps his hands in front of his face. "Also, I only brought two changes of clothes, because I didn't expect that I was going to be here long-term."

Chuckling, Kiriya looks aside at him. "Note how you bring up clothing _second_."

"So Parad got the 'constantly needing to be busy' from you, after all." Kuroto chimes in. "I was fairly sure that was the case, but it is nice to have confirmation. After all, approximately seventy percent of the assorted entertainment paraphernalia that was confiscated from my domain was his. Another twenty was work related."

Emu glances toward the cabinet. "That only adds up to _ninety_ percent."

"Did I stutter?"

"Also, 'domain'?"

"Did. I. Stutter?"

"Must have come with that god complex," mutters Parad, turning the page of a magazine. "He _used_ to call that sub-office his _lair_."

"That was your idea!"

"It was two years in, and I was being _sarcastic_. You kept it up for at least the next three."

Rolling his eyes at the exchange, Kiriya huffs. "Figures. Hey, where have these magazines even been coming from, anyway? I know I've brought some in, but not all of them."

Emu raises his hand. "That'd be me, then. I haven't exactly had much to do on this end, lately." He laughs nervously. "Most cases have been going to Taiga's clinic, so when I'm working here it's been really quiet.

"But getting back to the original topic… Trip to my place, yes or no? Please say yes. I'm pretty sure I'm going to be climbing the walls soon. Willing to bet Parad'd beat me to it, though."

"Eh, I think we can get away with that." Kiriya turns to Parad. "You coming with?"

Tensing up, Parad looks away. "Emu's… not wrong about the 'going stir crazy' thing. But I'm _supposed_ to stay here. I don't want to push my luck."

"Yeah, but you're allowed out with two people. One, two." Kiriya points at Emu and himself in turn. "It's fine."

* * *

"So, seeing how I'm 'grounded' for the next few weeks..." Emu begins, slowly, as he, Parad, and Kiriya walk to his apartment. "If you want, you can stay at my place for the time being."

Kiriya startles. "Eh? Wait, but they haven't even started getting-"

"No, not the one we're all going to be in, I mean my current one, where we're headed now. I mean, Poppy's already bunking with Nico, and you've _apparently_ been stuck at CR for ages, so I figured you'd want to get out of there." He shrugs. "Besides, it's going to be crowded enough in there as is, with us being there pretty much 24/7."

"Guys, wouldn't that leave _just_ you dealing with 'God' like. All day? Every day? On your own half of the time?"

Parad gives him a blank look. "That's not exactly new for me."

"Besides, he's… mostly harmless. For now. And as long as we can make sure he stays in the console." Emu purses his lips in consideration. "Though, if we have to stay down there for _too_ long we might want to consider asking if he can be moved, at least temporarily."

At that, Kiriya lets out a cackle. "I can _not_ blame you for that."

The three of them stop in front of an apartment building. "Alright, this is the place. Come on, I'm on the third floor."

* * *

"You kept all of these?" Parad doesn't look at Emu as he trails a hand along a shelf of older consoles. "I would have thought you'd get rid of them after you retired, what with the whole becoming a doctor thing, or that you'd at least have packed them up."

"I thought about it, yeah. A bunch of times, when everything in my life was piling up. Couldn't quite bring myself to, though." Emu looks over his shoulder, away from sorting through his dresser. "I haven't been buying the newer consoles straight away, though. When I _do_ get new games now, I'm buying them used more often than not. I _have_ been keeping my accounts up to date. I'm not making any public profiles, but it's enough to keep anyone from jacking my old-" he pauses. " _O_ _ur_ old handle."

"It's bizarre hearing _you_ do the thing with plurals..." Parad murmurs, before smirking. "I see that none of the _trophies_ are out, though."

"Ha!" Emu laughs, carrying a pile of shirts to his bed and packing them into a duffle bag. "Keeping those out would have killed any momentum I'd built up for sure. I have some of the older systems hooked up so I can have something to play to destress after rough periods at work."

"Yeeeaaah, that surprises exactly nobody." Kiriya drawls from the main room. "I've got a question, though. What's with this giant gap over here?"

"What? Emu and Parad step out of the bedroom. Kiriya is looking at one of the racks, with a sizable blank space that clearly used to be occupied. "Oh, heh. That's where my GenmCorp collection used to be. After finding out where the game disease came from, I kinda packed them all away. I still have them, in another case of 'couldn't bring myself to get rid of them,' but they're in a box. That's inside a storage tub. That I buried under a bunch of old blankets in the back of my closet. The only one I've kept out is Mighty… Action… X… _ohhhh, man_ -"

After freezing for a moment, Emu shoves his bag into Parad's arms. "Hold this, would you? There's something-" He heads to a different shelf, filled with cd cases. "I put it in the demo rack, because it _was_ a demo, so I didn't pack it with the rest of the Genm products, and I should have brought this in, after I found out what it really was, but there was a _lot_ going on, and I barely even remembered I still had it in the first place." Glancing at Parad, he grins sheepishly, before returning his attention to the shelf. "You being in here jogged my memory, so…"

Pulling something out, he turns to face Kiriya and Parad, biting his lip nervously. "We should _probably_ get this checked out."

Emu holds up a re-writable CD in a clear jewel case.

On a small sticker is a title.

"Mighty Action C."

Parad rears back. "Emu, what the actual hell." The bag full of clothes is tossed unceremoniously onto a worn-out couch, as he takes a few long strides to Emu, sticking his hand out. "Give that here. There is, like, _zero_ way that it's safe for you to _touch_ that."

Rolling his eyes, Emu passes the disc over. "It's not like I can get any _more_ infected. I mean, you're _right here_."

"Still a better idea for neither of you two to handle it." Parad shivers as he takes the case. "I know we held on to it for sentimental reasons _before_ , but the fact you still _have_ this after finding out what Kuroto used it for-"

Kiriya waves, to get their attention. "Hi, got any explanations for the guy who missed a few months?"

"I believe you were trying to get samples of the Bugster virus back when the two of you met?" Parad waits for Kiriya to nod in confirmation. "Yeah, well, this thing? It's got the oldest version on it that you're gonna find, unless the computer Kuroto used to burn it turns up."

"So that's the one he used to infect you, Ace?" Emu nods. Kiriya's eyes widen as he pulls out his phone. "Hang on just a minute. Gotta get a connection open." After making a few quick selections, he sets it down on the table. "Keep the area clear; my landings are still terrible. I'll be right back." He glares at them. " _Stay_. Both of you." Still giving Emu a stern look, he dissolves, shifting into the screen.

Emu chuckles nervously. "Ohhh, I'm in trouble."

"No, you _think_?"

"Hey, it's probably a good thing I still had it, though. This might help speed up the research into the… well, the vaccines." He doesn't meet Parad's eyes.

"I know."

"Parad, I promise, no matter _what_ happens, I'm not going to let anyone take you away, or hurt you, I _swear_ -"

"I know. I believe you." Parad's grip tightens on the CD case in his hand. Quietly, he adds "I'm gonna do the same for you."

Orange and yellow-flecked lights come out of the phone, coalescing into a stumbling Kiriya, who holds up a small black case, similar to the ones used to transport gashats. "Okay, put that in here. _Nobody_ is touching it again until we know it's safe, kids that came from it, included."

Parad nods, slipping the disc into a slot in the packaging. "Fair enough." He heaves a sigh of relief as Kiriya closes the box. "Man, it's _weird_ seeing that thing."

"I'm gonna go drop this off real quick, to get it the _hell_ out of here. You two-" Kiriya points at the duo "-need to figure out what you're bringing back to CR. See ya in a few."

"Right, right." Emu waves as Kiriya teleports out again. "So," he turns to Parad. "Are there any games in particular you had your eye on back there, or no?"

Running his hand through his hair, Parad snorts. "Right now? I'm willing to go for pretty much anything. Haven't gotten to play anything from publishers outside of GenmCorp for _seven years_. I _need_ a change."

* * *

Parad digs through his curls, staring at the stack of paper on the table. "Are we _sure_ this is okay? And necessary? I mean, I thought half of the whole 'not locking me up' deal was to get me on the 'straight and narrow', but a whole lot of these forms are gonna have to be made up…"

"Well, we kind of have to, in order for you to legally work here, you have to legally _exist_ …" Emu grumbles, tapping a pen on its end. "And here I said I wanted to at least be allowed to still do paperwork."

Parad murmurs his agreement, nodding. "That you did. And it _would_ be nice to have a legal name. I could have, like, a bank account and stuff." He notices Emu's raised eyebrow. "What?! I'm _poorly socialized_ with a busted moral compass, I'm not _completely_ oblivious. I know how… okay, I know a lot of this stuff in _theory_ , and drawing off your experiences. So it's not like any of this legal form filling stuff is something I've done _myself_ , but I know the basics."

Kiriya reaches across the table to grab one of the forms. "The _real_ question of the day is 'why is there an established set of forms for this'? It's, what is this… 'for the purposes of establishing a certified identity for previously non-existent beings.' Says there's a separate one for 'time and/or dimensionally displaced persons', too."

Emu gives him an odd look. "What are you even doing here?"

"Nerd-sitting."

"…Ask a stupid question…" Emu sighs, before flipping through to another page. "In any case, there's a lot of sections on here that I don't know _what_ we can put." Emu grumbles, tapping a pen on its end. "We have to fill out a pseudo _birth certificate_. Which, okay, yes, any legal forms after this one will require references, but," he gestures at the paper. "Parad, how old _are_ you, anyway? What should we say your birthday is?"

"I don't knoooow! If we want to get all _technical_ about it, going by when I got my own body, I'm _seven_." Parad whines. "Or seventeen, if we count from when you were first infected. _Or_ twenty-five, same as you are, since I kinda started as you? Ugggghhhh…" Parad lets his head drop to the table. "Not gonna lie, I kinda want to go with that, but I don't think this one really should be my call."

"Hmm." Emu mutters. "Well, I always thought of the Mighty Brothers in the _game_ as twins, so we _could_ just go that route. Give us the same birthday and everything. We did agree we wanted to be brothers, so why _not_ go all the way with it?"

"Hold up for a minute, there." Kiriya interrupts. "Don't get me wrong, you probably don't have much choice but to make this up, since I don't think anyone's gonna believe that Mister Six-Foot-One here is seven years old, but if the two of you legally become brothers, wouldn't your folks have something to say to that? I mean, it'll be kinda awkward to tell 'em that suddenly they've got two sons. To say nothing of suddenly their _one_ kid is now _tw_ _o_."

Emu scoffs. "Yeah, no, don't worry about that. We'll be fine."

Kiriya blinks, taken aback by Emu's suddenly flippant tone. "Emu?"

"My mother… isn't here anymore." Emu's gaze turns stony as he directs it back to the papers. "And I haven't spoken to my father in years."

"If you did, we could surprise him with the news." Parad's smile is cold. "It'd serve him right."

"You know~" a voice drawls from behind them. "If you don't want to go that route~…"

""Oh no.""

"Seeing as how I _am_ the father of all Bugsters…"

Parad glares at Kuroto, his shoulders tensing. "There's not a chance in hell I'm listing _you_ as my father."

"Mm, I suppose it _would_ put a kink in your plan of being brothers, wouldn't it?" Kuroto smiles, smugly. "After all, that _would_ make Emu your mo-"

"NOPE!" Shoving his chair back, Emu stands, slamming one hand down on the table and pointing the other furiously at Kuroto. "Do NOT finish that sentence! I don't want to- NO!"

"Emu… Emu, I think I'm gonna have to go back on that 'no killing' promise. He's still got two lives left, yeah?"

"Parad, _no_ , and watch your language." Emu puts a hand on his shoulder to hold him back. "Kuroto, _also_ no."

Kiriya raises a hand. "If Parad doesn't get to do the thing for that comment, can I?"

"Kiriya, _no_."

"Hey, I don't want to consider that alleged idea either! Bad enough he got me into the bugster situation in the first place, I ain't callin' him dad." He freezes, his eyes wide. "…wait. Oh. Oh _hell_ no." Turning to the others, he whispers. "Wouldn't that make him his _own_ father, too?"

Parad frowns. "Er. If we're going to get in-depth with this. Technically the reason any of the Bugsters can hold a physical form is because of the code from _me_ , so…"

Emu slams his hands over his ears. "GUYS! CUT IT OUT! We are NOT having this conversation!" He lifts one of them off to point at Parad. "Are we doing the twins thing, yes or no?"

Grinning, Parad nods. "Yeah. Let's do it." He looks back down at the stack of forms in front of them, his face dropping somewhat. "Still…"

"Right, that's _one_ set of things decided." Emu grabs a stapled set of papers. "Okay… um. This is asking for your _species_. That's. A thing the government has on a form now, apparently."

Parad scoots over to look. "That's… a _really_ long list, too. What even _are_ these?" He tilts his head as he reads. "Like, what the hell's a Roidmude?"

Everyone else just shrugs.

"Oh, hey!" Kiriya waves the sheet he'd picked up earlier. "They've got a way to document a _change in species_? What the he- I coulda used that _months_ ago!"

Emu winces. "I'd just like to apologize once again for including you on the list in the speech… I didn't really have much choice in the matter, since you _are_ one of the victims in all of this."

"Yeah, I know, I'm messing with you. Mostly." Spinning his office chair around, he rolls over to grab his laptop. "Gonna see if I can get that online…" His voice drops to a mutter. "Turn-about's fair play, anyways. I kinda came out ahead… bein' called 'missing and presumed on a game cartridge' is loads easier to work around then having your death faked..."

The room goes silent as all eyes turn to him. "…What? Something I said?"

"Kiriya…" Emu's voice goes low and cold, his eyes narrowing. "What did you do?"

"Oh, _shit_ , did I say that last part out loud?"

"What did you _do_? Explain. _Now_."

Parad edges slightly away, while Kuroto actively backs away from the bars in his cell.

"Uh…" Kiriya begins to sweat. "Er, well, mistakes-were-made-I-have-to-go-see-an-office-about-some-papers-okay-BYE!" He teleports away before Emu has a chance to grab him.

* * *

 **(Later in the week, at the Hanaya Clinic)**

"How long do you think this will take?" Parad looks around nervously, legs swinging back and forth over the side of the exam table.

Although he's facing his desk, Taiga instinctively raises an eyebrow. "Having second thoughts? We _can_ still ask Emu to come down here if you're worried."

Parad shakes his head in response. "Nah."

"Well, it's true that we need to have at least _some_ sort of medical record for you, in order to help finalize your 'existence' properly. But I have to say, I didn't expect you would want _me_ to be the person to do your pseudo-physical, or for it to be done at my clinic."

"It would have been weird. If Emu were here, I mean. It's getting kinda awkward, too, being in CR. It doesn't feel like I _belong_ there, so I… _really_ needed to get out, even just for an hour or two." Parad shrinks into his coat. "And, there's some stuff I wanted to ask you about anyway, and I'd probably lose my nerve if anyone else were around."

"Hmph." Taiga turns. "Emu's starting to get a bit overprotective, isn't he?" Parad's eyes widen as he nods. "He's been doing that a lot lately. _Don't_ tell him I said this, but ever since you and Poppy died, he's started to take her place as the 'mom friend.'" Taiga smirks as Parad tries in vain to turn a laugh into a cough. "No, really. So far, we're all just waiting to see when he notices, so either join in the betting pool when you can, or don't spoil this for us."

"He doesn't know?!"

"Not as far as anyone's been able to tell." Taiga taps his pen against his clipboard, before setting them both aside. "Look, you said you had questions, so do you want to start there? It'll be harder to do anything if you're _this_ wired, anyway."

"…That first night that I was back, Lazer-" Parad pauses. "I should at least use 'Kujo', shouldn't I? I'm going to be living with the guy soon…"

"Well, he's not here right now, so you may as well stick with Lazer for the time being."

"Right. He said that the rest of you had vouched for me, before you could even tell when, or _if_ I was coming back. What did." he swallows. "What did you say?"

"That you were coerced into your role by Genm as much as any of us." Taiga crosses one leg over the other, giving Parad a serious look. "Moreso, actually, since he was the only human you were around for, what, six years?"

There's a brief hesitation before Parad nods. "There _were_ a few scientist, or researchers, or… well, they were something along those lines, anyway, around for the first few months. I dunno where they went, or, more likely, what happened to them after he infected his mother."

"Which means that any of them would have been well out of the picture by the time I first became Snipe." Taiga frowns. "He never _has_ liked to leave any 'loose ends' lying around, has he?"

"Mm-hm."

" _Wonderfu_ _l._ That ties to the _other_ reason I vouched for you, actually. I can… well, not completely, mind you, since the situations _were_ different. But I can very much relate to having been used as a 'test run' for his 'grand designs,' in a similar way to how Emu and yourself were. Again, differently, and the two of you were screwed over _far_ worse, but still."

"You know…" Parad begins, idly wrapping one of the cords on his jacket around his finger, "I didn't get it, before – why you went to the lengths you did back then, as Proto-Snipe. Even as you were realizing that it was probably killing you. I still don't get _how_ you were able to keep going, really. But now? Having seen you dealing with everyone, with having actually _met_ you?" He smirks, meeting Taiga's gaze. "You aren't _nearly_ as much of an asshole as you make yourself out to be, are you?"

"…!" Taiga turns back to the desk, hastily grabbing his clipboard. "Are you ready to start that exam now?"

"Think so, yeah." Unclasping his jacket collar, Parad bites at his lip. "Just, uh, fair warning, though. This thing and my shirt are gonna fade out of wherever I put them, and back onto me after about twenty to thirty minutes. Poppy's teaching me the whole 'costume change' stuff, so I'll be able to get around that eventually, but, well, it's slow going."

"That's fair enough. I'm assuming that's why you asked how long this takes, then?"

"Yeah."

"Well, it's hard to say. Let me know when that starts happening, and we can pause and wait. I _do_ have a related question for you, actually."

Parad tilts his head, his eyes narrowing slightly. "Go ahead."

"Why is your coat _like that?_ With the buckles and short sleeves, it makes absolutely no sense at all."

The stare Taiga receives is unimpressed. "Okay, _you_ don't get to ask that. Not with those combat boots you're always wearing, when you're tall enough as is. Or should I tell Nico about your footwear choices back in 2011?"

"You wouldn't dare."

" _You_ wouldn't live it down. Socks and sandals? Really?"

"I made mistakes. That was one of them. Shut up."

Parad grins as he sets his jacket aside, and starts pulling off his pink fingerless gloves.

"Wait, those are _gloves_?"

Parad nods as he folds them, putting them on top of his jacket. "Yeah. Why, what'd you think I was wearing?"

Taiga shrugs. "Honestly, I'd just assumed they were part of your shirt, but. Whatever."

"Heh." Chuckling, Parad's voice is muffled as he pulls off his t-shirt. "I mean, my look technically comes from Emu's imagination. Small eight-year-olds have _zero_ restraint when it comes to designing characters."

"Well, you're not wrong…" Taiga trails off. "When you and Poppy do the whole outfit change, does that change anything about your _body_? Because that'd be good to know…"

"No, we stay the same. Poppy's hair is just a cosmetic thing." Tilting his head, Parad squints. "Why?"

"It's… well, firstly, that's a good thing to know for how bugsters work in general. Secondly, one of the things I'm supposed to do is take note of 'identifying marks.' You, uh, you've got a birthmark that's a mirror of Emu's surgical scar."

Parad looks down at his torso. "No, it's the same, isn't it?" He shrugs. "But Emu'd probably know better than me, anyway. I don't think I'm technically _supposed_ to have this, in the first place. The car happened _after_ he thought up Mighty Brothers, after all."

"You said it yourself – he was eight. Probably saw it mostly in the mirror, and since the whole…" Taiga makes a vague gesture, not wanting to _quite_ say it. "'Incident' shook the both of you up, it must have carried over subconsciously."

* * *

Kiriya watches Emu pace across the office. "Okay, is something up?"

"It's nothing."

Scoffing, Kiriya points the pen he'd been spinning at Emu. "Yeah, right. You ever hear the saying 'you can't con a con man'? What's eating you?"

"I _said_ it's nothing, really."

"Worried? Parad's gonna be just fine, you _know_ that. Both him and Taiga agreed to do his physical there. Hell, the kid's the one who suggested it."

Groaning, Emu shakes his head. "No, it's not that. …Okay, it's _partly_ that, but it's not just that I'm worried about him. I'm just… Ugh." He sits heavily on a chair. "Let's just say Parad's not the only one who's a little anxious about being cooped up in here."

Kiriya simply raises an eyebrow, inviting Emu to continue.

"I… really don't like being on _this_ end of the job, is all. Don't get me wrong, I understand the reasoning, I really do, and I agree that I definitely should be under observation right now, just in case, but it's…" he sighs, setting his head on the table. "The whole thing with having to stay here full time is starting to bring back bad memories."

Kiriya's response is quiet. "From when you were a kid?"

Slowly, Emu nods. "After… well, I was pretty messed up, so I was in the hospital for a long time. There was a _lot_ of rehab after the accident, but my father wasn't exactly… around enough… to ferry me back and forth. And since I was so young, it wasn't a good idea for me to be alone at home the way I was a lot of the time. So… because of all that, the doctors involved determined that it would be a better idea, and easier for everyone involved, especially myself, if I remained as an inpatient for a while."

"…Ace?"

"I mean, it's different when it's just for work. Long shifts in pediatrics and CR have never bothered me, outside of being exhausting. But being a patient again? That's a little less than ideal." He laughs dryly. "I'm staying the full time that Parad has to, though. Figure I'll come back down for the night after my shifts upstairs."

"Huh. You sure about that? Kinda think he's the one who'd understand perfectly why you'd want out of here as soon as possible." Kiriya looks over to where Emu's set a low cot up next to Parad's hammock. "He won't blame you."

"Yeah, well. That's exactly _why_ I'm not leaving." Emu smirks. "Because he was there, too. With all of the years I wasn't able to help him, sticking this out is the least that I can do."

* * *

Partway through the exam, the front buzzer rings, drawing their attention.

"Go." Parad nods toward the door. "That's your _real_ job, after all."

"Are you alright with just waiting here?" Taiga comments as he heads out to meet his patient. "I know that both of you want to get back in the field, so to speak."

Shaking his head, Parad reaches for his shirt. "I've only got the one gashat I can use on my own, and it's still under lock and key at CR. I can't do a thing in combat without it."

As Parad is pulling his jacket back on, tell-tale waves of pixels sweep the walls, indicating that Snipe is about to make an appearance.

"Huh. Guess that they were close by, if he didn't have to go find them." He pouts at the cords adorning his coat. They'd gotten tangled at some point. While he straightens them out, the walls of the clinic disappear, giving way to a forest. "… _Huh_."

He picks his way through the trees, making his way towards the sounds of battle. When he makes his way to a clearing, he's just in time to see Aranbura's Bugster Union collapse to the ground. There's no patient in sight, which is _strange_ , because the Unions always held their host inside. To say nothing of how there shouldn't be a Union in the first place, because none of them had used that tactic for months _before_ he started Chronicle up. Even stranger still is that when it dissolves, there's no sign of Aranbura himself – just of the Virus footsoldiers he always brought with him. And a _lot_ of them, at that. "What the hell is going on?"

Speaking was apparently a mistake, because some of the viruses that don't immediately go after Snipe go after _him_ instead. "Ah. Drat."

"Parad! What are you doing here?!" Gunfire punctuates Snipe's shout.

"Not really sure, myself!" Kicking a robed grunt away, Parad curses under his breath. "I _think_ I got caught in the zone generation. Also, I'm _really_ not going to be much help." Dodging a blow from a staff, his responding punch only serves to knock his opponent back a small distance. "I've got shielding abilities, and teleportation, but exactly zero ways to do damage without transforming!"

Snipe growls. "That does explain why you didn't come after us sooner, at any rate." He shoots down three more viruses in quick succession. "Get over here, then!"

"What?!"

"Just do it! If I give you the Gashacon Magnum, and then _I_ go into Simulations, then we'll get this done that much faster!"

Parad stares. "But-"

"Oh, for crying out loud. You want to prove to yourself that we're not making a mistake by trusting you, right?!"

Startled, Parad stares at Snipe, even as he absently knocks a pair of viruses into each other.

"Well, this is your chance! Get _over_ here!"

It takes a moment, but soon, Parad's expression hardens. "Got it."

* * *

"Here, put this on your eye. I'll call up the others." Taiga grunts in pain as he sets up his game scope for a video call.

"Sorry that I couldn't stop them from getting that hit in on you." Flinching briefly away from the chill of the icepack, Parad takes a moment to settle it in place before continuing. "So, that guy was infected with Aranbura's strain, but I didn't see _him_ anywhere. Is that the new normal?"

"So far, yes." Taiga nods absently. "We haven't seen any of the other 'real' Bugsters since Chronicle ended; just their troops."

It takes a moment before Parad can bring himself to respond. "Is it wrong that I'm grateful for that? And not because it probably means that your patients are safer, but because it means I won't have to fight the others?"

"…I don't think it's necessarily wrong, no. Your goal for how many years was meeting them? Of course you wouldn't want to have to turn on your friends." He looks up as the call goes through.

Emu appears on the projected display. "Taiga? Are you guys done alrea- What happened?!"

Both Taiga and Parad draw back slightly. "Listen…" Taiga starts. "I had a patient, the fight got a _little_ rough, and-"

"I'm coming down there." With Emu glaring directly at Taiga, the call cuts off.

The two both stare at the space where he had just been. "So." Taiga hesitates. "Which of us do you think is going to be in more trouble?"

"Good question."

* * *

"Hey," Emu walks in. "I'm here, what's the damage?"

Taiga grumbles, sitting rigidly in his chair. "A bunch of Aranbura's minions. No sign of him though, once again. It _is_ strange that we haven't seen any of the, er, 'lead' Bugsters since Chronicle. But they got a few lucky hits in. I haven't actually taken a look how bad it is yet; I had to make sure my patient didn't see that anything happened, after all." He starts to pull off his shirt, freezing halfway as he hisses in pain.

"Want me to help out with that?"

"Please do."

"Oh, wow." Emu winces in sympathy as he helps Taiga. "That's already bruising. What happened? You fight at a distance."

"Yeah, so, apparently the minions can use energy items now. One of them got a hold of an invisibility token, and-" he flinches. "What the hell, your hands are freezing!"

"Sorry. Keep going? This sounds important."

"Right-" Taiga hisses again. "One of them got an invisibility token, and five more disappeared with it. They wound up getting me with those stupid staves."

"Huh…" Parad drums his fingers on the table. "I got pulled into the fight, so I was trying to block the worst hits, but… before they vanished, I'm pretty sure that they were all the same design."

Emu looks up. "What're you thinking?"

"That it might be some sort of identifier glitch, or an oversight." Parad toys with one of his cables, half distracted in thought. "The powerups are exclusively a game function – that's how Cronus could pull them out of play, and how I could use Perfect Puzzle to reveal them in the first place.

"They weren't intended to apply to the grunts; they barely work for Bugsters at all, and even at that it's mostly only when a rider hits us with them. I can only use them properly because I'm using a gashat to transform. If it weren't for that, I'd be out of luck.

"And the smaller grunts… they. Hm." He frowns. "They aren't really aware. They're the second most basic form of the virus, outside of the viral infection itself. They barely touch the 'game' aspect of the 'game disease,' really, they pick up just enough of it to give them their individual outfits.

"If somehow… well, after Chronicle, none of the others have shown up, right? So, if somehow their identities within the gashats, and all of the other game functions, managed to transfer to the minions…"

"Like an underflow or a buffer of some sort, right?" Emu catches onto the train of thought. "The regular Bugsters can be _effected_ by the items, but they aren't the ones to _activate_ them – that's always us. But since the powerups _are_ a game construct, if they can't find the _intended_ target that they're coded for, probably the program skips to the next legible line, does what it _thinks_ it's supposed to do, and continues on its merry way. If it applied to a _group_ of them, then the code might be reading from one location in the database, and multiple instances of one type are treated as all being the same individual instance."

"Hold on." Taiga tries to interrupt. "First, that part about bugsters not being able to use the energy items without a gashat can't be true. Emu, you've said yourself that Poppy used that weird Christmas item, remember?"

"Hm, yeah, she did, but…" Emu pauses. "Looking back, it could have been a similar situation. Hiiro was using Doremifa Beat, and the two tokens she used went to the two of them just about simultaneously."

"Alright, that _would_ match with what you were saying, then. So, second, how do you two know any of that programming stuff?"

"I looked that type of thing up sometimes when I finished tests and such early back in high school. Here, hold this for a second." Emu passes a roll of bandage tape to Taiga, who obliges him. "I couldn't exactly _practice_ while I was in class, so that was the next best thing."

"I've got the memories of us doing that, and then later on, I took a more 'personal' interest in how 'regular games' work." Parad shrugs. "A lot of the so-called glitches in older video games were actually the programming attempting to follow its instructions, but having even just a fragment of data somewhere unexpected can throw everything out of order. That can come from the player interfering somehow, or from actions the developer didn't take into account. But a lot of the time, the game was just carrying out the instructions it had, and simply refusing to crash."

* * *

He's been thinking about it for a while, but it's not until the end of his initial week under 'office arrest' that Emu finally asks something that has been bothering him.

"Do you think there's a way to tell how much of me is human, and how much is bugster?"

The office – which had been quietly humming with conversations and the sounds of electronic devices – goes quiet.

"Emu…" Hiiro speaks up slowly, setting his knife down before he had a chance to cut into his cake. "I think I can speak for all of us when I ask what on _Earth_ are you talking about?"

"Well, it's just that… I mean, I know Nico was _joking_ , that first night, but it's not like she was _wrong_ , about me not being baseline human." Crossing his arms over the table, Emu leans forward, resting his chin on them. "I've done a lot of things that I should _not_ be able to do. That _nobody_ should be able to do. To start with, the whole 'forming gashats out of blanks' thing."

Poppy purses her lips. "But Kuroto made all the _other_ ones, so that's not _too_ unusual, is it?"

From his cell, Kuroto coughs. "I need to use equipment to do that, actually. Equipment of my own design, yes, but what he did to make those knock-offs was something entirely different. Frankly, it was both impressive _and_ somewhat terrifying. That first one would have killed _me_ , and I was already _dead_ at the time."

Emu slowly turns to glare at Parad.

"I was _going_ to step in if it went _too_ wrong!" Parad pouts. "Besides, I knew you could make it work."

"Uh- _huh_. I believe I also recall you giving me the 'change my fate' line when you handed that to me?" Parad doesn't respond to Emu's comment, so he continues on. "Okay, so that aside, the whole Reprogramming thing shouldn't work, either. On a fundamental level, it's _weird_. Kiriya, you said it would _only_ work for me, right?"

"In theory, yeah. I mean, the research I'd been _able_ to do before, y'know, all _tha_ _t_ went down indicated it, anyway. Since a lot of the base of the game disease as it existed at the time came from Parad – not that I knew about _him_ precisely – and he got a lot of _his_ base from you, it makes sense that you'd be the only guy to be able to re-write bugster code on the fly. Also, for the record? That attack?" Kiriya turns to level a stare at Emu. "THAT THING HURTS."

"That's true."

"I mean, I was goading you into using it on me, so I have _zero_ right to complain, _but_ …"

"Sorry, Emu, but, well…" Poppy smiles apologetically.

"Hnnnn…" Emu drops his head to the table, covering it with his arms. "I'm _really_ sorry, guys… Well, Kiriya and Poppy, anyway. Parad and Kuroto, you two had it coming."

"Like I said, I was kinda daring you to hit me with it, so."

"Pfeh."

"Anyway. There's also… well, there's also the final battle against Cronus." He pauses, hesitating. " _J_ _ust_ the act of reinfecting myself with Parad _might_ have been enough to let me transform, but I really doubt it. Not from just the one fragment of data. And…" Picking himself up off the table, Emu doesn't meet anyone's eye as he grips one forearm. "I was able to move during that last time he used Pause."

Everyone in the room looks at him. "Emu…" Hiiro begins, quietly. "What _did_ happen there, anyway? Nobody else saw."

"It… was weird. It wasn't like using Hyper Muteki at all, it was… I could hear him, he was taunting us, because normally we _wouldn't_ hear him, and… he was coming to kill me." He swallows before continuing. "He was going on about how individual lives don't mean anything, and I could _hear_ him, but I couldn't react, until… until I _could_. So, I punched him. I froze back up, immediately after, but I could still _see and hear_ what happened." He shivers. "I punched him _so hard_ he flew backward – he crashed into that clock he always had with him, and that's when the pause ended, but… guys, a human fist should _not_ be able to break a Bugvisor, and that's what I _did_."

The room is silent for a moment, before Kuroto speaks up. "What the hell. _T_ _hat's_ what happened to that?! Do you have any _idea_ how well I designed all of the equipment?! If that Bugvisor could stand up to you pummeling it with Hyper Muteki, there is _literally no way_ you should have been able to disable it _with your bare hands_!" Jumping upright, he slams his hands on his table. "There's NO WAY that is what happened!"

"Why would I _l_ _ie_ about this?" Emu rolls his eyes. "I am _literally_ trying to find out what's going on with me, why on _E_ _arth_ would I make things up?"

" _Boys_ , simmer down."

""Yes, Poppy.""

"But, seriously, _is_ there a way to, y'know, test my DNA or something, and find out how messed up it probably is?" Shrugging, Emu lets out a small laugh. "I mean, _duh_ , DNA tests are a _thing_ , we work at a _h_ _ospital_ , but a way that _won't_ get us looked at like we're nuts?"

Hiiro taps on the table, to draw attention. "There _were_ the tests that those of us who went through the 'normal channels' to receive our drivers undertook. If I recall correctly, one of those involved a genetic examination of some sort. It would make sense if that could be… re-purposed for this."

"Not sure I like that tone you're using, Ace. But I've still got my notes on ya, too." Kirirya waves. "And hey, comparing what I've got on you from _before_ you probably retooled yourself while making those gashats to now could be neat."

* * *

"Come onnnn-" _(snap)_ "Work, damn it…" _(snap)_ "For the love of-" _(snap)_

Emu looks around the corner. "Hey, is there something you need help with, or what?"

"No, not with this, you can't… Rargh!" Parad growls, clicking his fingers yet again. each time he does, a flurry of red and blue pixels dance around him, but nothing else happens. "Ugh!"

"Okay, what are you trying to _do_?"

"I figured I'd try to get changed NOW" _(snap)_ "As opposed to later" _(snap)_ "So I can get it over with." _(snap)_ "OH FOR THE LOVE OF-"

Wild cackling can be heard from behind digital bars.

"Oh, yeah? You think that this is funny?" Parad glares at Kuroto. "Have _you_ ever tried this?"

The laughter cuts off.

"Yeah. Didn't think so."

"Wonder if we can convince the ministry to keep him somewhere else for the rest of the month. Just until you're out of here." Emu mumbles. "One of these days, someone's going to snap…"

"Personally? I'm surprised Lazer didn't. I had a LONG time to get used to Genm's assorted variants of assholery. you guys haven't."

"If you want to get TECHNICAL about it, BOTH you and Kujo already have-"

"Stuff it. I mean, that IS how you wound up in there in the first place, and you had it coming, but stuff it."

* * *

"I mean, it's not like Hiiro and Taiga are exactly baseline, _either_ , right?" Emu stares at the ceiling.

"Ugghhh…" Parad groans, rolling over to face the wall. "Do we have to have this conversation _now_?"

"Well, am I _wrong_? because until _literally anyone_ tells me what the compatibility surgery actually _does_ , I'm left to draw my own conclusions!" Emu huffs, crossing his arms, setting the borrowed hammock swinging slightly. "I mean, it can't exactly leave people _completely_ normal, or certain features of being a Kamen Rider just wouldn't _work_."

Parad sighs. "Guess we're having this conversation now. Which 'features'?"

"Bakusou Bike. The ability to withstand hits that nobody should be able to. I mean, have you _seen_ the jumps we're able to do while suited up? It might be normal for you and Poppy, yeah, but the rest of us? Nah. We're not, biologically speaking, supposed to be able to do that."

"Emu." Parad's voice turns cold. "I am trying to sleep. It's been a while for me. On top of that, you and I had to deal with a _very_ large fight earlier, so I'd like to sleep _that_ off. And if you don't _shut up_ , I am going to take my hammock back. Then, you don't _get_ the hammock, which I know full _well_ you've been looking forward to getting to use. So. Shut. Up."

"…Yeah. Sorry. I got a little carried away there, I guess."

"No kidding. G'night, Emu."

"Night, Parad."


	4. Boss Battle

"So, we've got everything set up for us to try this out?" Emu picks up a rather cobbled together looking headset. "For now, anyway?"

"Yep. Between the blackout glasses and the headphones, we _should_ be able to keep you from seeing or hearing anything outside, so we'll be able to listen in on both ends of your conversation, but you won't be talking via the intercom at all." Kiriya pauses. "That _was_ the intent you guys had, right?"

Parad nods in confirmation. "The arrangement is that I'll be in the office with Kiriya, while Emu's down here with Brave, right?"

"Correct." Hiiro nods. "Now, let's get the both of you hooked up and start testing this…" he grimaces. "Telepathy skill. You really couldn't think of a better term?"

"No, not really."

"It's pretty accurate."

"Fine then."

* * *

"Alright, Parad's hooked up, you can get yours on at anytime."

"Got it, going in now." Emu grins, slipping on the headset as he leans back in the chair. Underneath, his brow furrows in concentration. "Parad, are you there?"

' _Ow, yeah, not- uh, not so loud. That's. Wow.'_

"Woah, yeah, okay, you too. Uh, maybe if we back off a little-"

' _Right, it's like you're shouting in my ear. Maybe because we can't hear anything else?'_

"We're probably overcompensating for that, right. For next time, we should probably adjust the setup so that it won't be a _total_ blackout. Was that any better on your end, Parad?"

' _Mm-hmm. A lot, actually. You?'_

"Yeah. So…" Emu crosses his arms. "How's life treating you?"

' _Funny. Real funny.'_

"You know what I mean. We might as well get some _other_ work done while we're at this."

' _I mean, I guess.'_

"So?"

* * *

"Well…" Parad hums. "It's not as bad this time around, at least."

' _W_ _hat do you mean?'_ Emu sounds worried, not that Parad can blame him. He hasn't talked much about the past six years.

"I'm not alone, for one. There were a lot of tests to find out what I could do and. Well… to figure out what exactly I was."

' _Didn't they already know? I mean, Kuroto designed the root of the bugster virus, right?'_

"No, not really. He _found_ it, and did… some work with it, but then when he received your letter – and keep in mind, I only heard any of this after the fact – but he'd only just begun when he sent that demo off to you."

'… _He had no idea what was going to happen to me, did he?'_

"Absolutely none. I am a _fluke_ , by all rights none of this should have been possible at all."

' _I_ _really wish you wouldn't talk about yourself like… like that.'_

* * *

' _It's true, though. It doesn't make sense that the bugsters exist in the first place, does it?'_ Parad's mental voice is quiet, and Emu assumes his actual one is, too. _'It's unprecedented, that's why there were all the-'_ he cuts off. _'Never mind.'_

Emu frowns. "No, that's not a 'never mind' sort of topic! All the what?"

'… _There…_ _for a while, there were a lot of… tests, I guess you'd call them. Experiments, maybe?'_ There's a pause, like Parad's choosing his words carefully. _'Just… just for a while, there were a lot of scientists and stuff that showed up a lot. I…'_ There's that hesitation again. _'I don't wanna talk about it. They stopped coming after a while, so it's fine.'_

"Parad… what do you mean by 'experiments'?" Emu does his best to keep his voice gentle, but it clearly isn't enough.

' _I said I don't want to talk about it!'_ Parad is very definitely yelling, and very definitely getting worked up. _'Just drop it!'_

Flinching, Emu reaches up to hold his head, an ache spiking somewhere deep in his skull. "Okay, okay, just – I won't pry, calm down!" He can't hear what Hiiro's saying, but he can feel the hand on his shoulder, and waves it away. "You don't have to talk about it until you're ready, okay?"

'… _Fine._ _Sorry,_ _I just-_ _Sorry._ _'_

"I get it. Everyone has things we don't want dredged up out of their pasts. You and I are no exception." Emu sighs. They won't be able to put this conversation off forever, but they can put it off for now. "Do you want to stop? The test here, I mean."

' _Yeah. I've had about enough.'_

* * *

Parad doesn't talk to anyone when he comes out of the near trance he'd wound up in while he and Emu talked. Not while Kiriya disconnects the monitor leads that had been hooked up to keep track of what biometrics he _does_ have, or when Emu and Hiiro come back upstairs.

He _can't_ talk to them. Not after _that_. He shouldn't have brought it up. He shouldn't have – they don't need to know about any of that! It's in the past, it doesn't matter, so why'd it even come to mind?

It's not like he'd been given any choice back then, anyway. Not like now. So it's completely different. Right? Right.

Firmly, he gets out of the chair he'd been in and goes directly over to the couch, pulling at the sticky pads he didn't wait to get off and wrinkling his nose at the glue that stays behind. Well. He's not going to be getting into his hammock until he's made sure he's gotten all of _that_ off.

"Here." Someone sets a small pile of packaged wipes on the seat near him. "These'll help get it all off."

Chancing a glance up, Parad stiffens a little at Emu's regretful expression, and doesn't say anything as he pulls the wipes closer.

"I'm sorry I was pushing. If you want to talk later, I'll listen. If you don't, I'll still listen." Emu tries to smile. "My shift down here is almost over, so I've got to get back up to pediatrics. See you tonight."

Parad just nods.

* * *

Almost an hour passes, during which Kiriya teleports back to GenmCorp, headsets in hand, muttering something about fit adjustment and recordings. Hiiro, however, stays downstairs. Weird. Parad looked at the calendar earlier. He was supposed to be upstairs a half hour ago.

"Brave?"

"Yes?" Hiiro doesn't look up from his cake.

"What are you still _doing_ here?"

He _does_ look up for that, at least for a moment, to give Parad a look which clearly says that that is one of the dumbest questions he has ever heard.

"I mean, aside from eating. You've clearly got a goal here."

With a sigh, Hiiro puts down his fork and knife. "I keep forgetting how observant you two are." Parad preens at the compliment. "I know you've been asking us all about why we've been willing to let you stay around. Frankly, I'm a bit insulted you haven't come to me yet."

Shrugging, Parad hums, his legs swinging back and forth off the edge of the couch. "Been trying to only ask when Emu's not around. When he catches me at this stuff, he gets that kicked puppy look, and-"

"Ah, yes, that one. It's infuriatingly difficult to avoid, isn't it? Regardless, I figured that I may as well finally get this discussion out of the way while Emu is otherwise occupied." Returning some of his attention to the cake, Hiiro continues. "I assume you remember what he was like after the coroner was killed?"

"Yeah, that's pretty hard to forget. He was _super_ close to just flat out crashing. What's your point?"

"You and Poppy died. I'm tired of seeing him that way."

Parad looks down at the table. "So… Emu went all empty again, then?" Hiiro nods in reply, Parad watching from the corner of his eye. "Guess I underestimated how much he was gonna miss her…"

"Oh, for crying out loud… Parad, listen to me." Hiiro sighs. "Make no mistake, I'm not certain that I can trust you just yet. But Poppy isn't the only person that Emu was mourning." The confusion must be written on Parad's face, because when Hiiro continues talking, it's weirdly gentle. "He missed you, Parad. It's not just because Emu is, frankly, far too nice for his own good. He trusts that you can be better than you were. For the most part, he's usually been right when he decides that. That's how it was for everyone else who works here, certain game developers notwithstanding. So, I'm willing to give you the benefit of the doubt for now."

"It's still kinda weird to hear all of that, but." Quietly, Parad nods. "I'll take it."

They remain silent for the rest of Hiiro's break, not… ignoring each other, necessarily. But neither of the two are the greatest at interaction, particularly with people they aren't familiar with. It's easier this way. Eventually, of course, Hiiro can't put off going back upstairs any longer. "You _will_ behave until Emu returns, correct?"

"Yeah, of course." Parad hesitates, and then gives a small wave. "Good luck up there."

He swears he can see a small, brief smile as Hiiro leaves.

* * *

Outside in the rain, and upstairs in the hospital lobby, everything promptly goes to hell.

* * *

"Kuroto, we need your help."

He raises an eyebrow. "That's not something I expected you to ask of _m_ _e_ anytime soon. I appreciate that you finally appreciate my godly tal-"

"Yeah, whatever." Emu looks to the side, dismissively. "We're running a little low on manpower, right now, to say the least. We _need_ to figure out what's going on, which means we need all conscious hands on deck."

"Hmmm…" He makes a show of resting his chin on a propped-up arm. "And what possible reason could I have for aiding you right now?"

Dragging a hand down his face, Emu groans. " _L_ _ook_. Right now, it's us, Parad, and Kiriya. _E_ _veryone_ _else_ is stuck in some sort of virtuality, or _whatever_ it is that's got them trapped."

"…Oh. Even-"

"Yeah. Yeah, whatever's going on, these guys were able to knock Poppy out, and stick her in… wherever everyone's consciousnesses are right now. Whoever's in charge is using a Gamer driver, and a gashat that I _know_ isn't from Genm Corp. 'Hurricane Ninja', I think?" Emu bites his lip. "Pretty sure that one's an in-development Maxima Vision game…"

"…Damn them! Fine, _fine_ , I'll help!"

' _Yup. When in doubt, appeal to his main weaknesses: Poppy, his ego, and his_ massive _complex about people using his creations.'_

* * *

"We're positive this setup won't knock me out, right?" Emu unbuckles the wired gloves to put them on. "I don't want to leave you two as the only people available to fight, if I need to get out."

"You say this as if you don't trust me."

Emu glares at Kuroto. "I _don't_. The VR we use at work still functions if someone's _already_ unconscious. If this thing puts me under-"

Kuroto rolls his eyes as he plugs in the monitors. "It _won't_. This is the commercially available headset, as are all the other components. The only non-standard equipment is your driver, the gashat, and yourself. …You should take off your coat before you put those on."

"Oh, come on-"

"It'll get in the way. You're _actually_ moving around this time, and I doubt you want to get tangled up."

Emu bites his lip. "…Okay, true." Shrugging the coat off, he calls over across the room. "Parad! Catch!"

"Wha-"

"You're, shall we say, familiar with my body language. Mind playing decoy?"

* * *

Sparing a glance in the rearview mirror, Kuroto frowns. "You're being awfully quiet back there."

"Shh!" Parad hisses. "I'm _listening_ , okay?!" There's a brief pause. "…Aw, hell. We thought right, Kiriya's in there."

"Well, isn't that just _great_ , it'll just be the two of us, then. No backup what-so-ever. Wonderful."

"…Genm…?" Parad's voice wavers. "We have a problem."

"Aside from us being the only ones available to stop this man right now?"

"Do you… do you think, after the stunt I pulled during that final battle…" He swallows heavily before continuing. "I used the gamedeus vaccine to hold him back… Do you think that made me immune? That I could do that again?"

"I do _not_ like where you're going with this."

"It's him again. What I'm feeling from what Emu's feeling in there, it's Gamedeus, his code signature's all over this place, but Emu and Kiriya can't feel it. I think he's _aware_ now, not just a construct anymore, but I don't know how, and – holy _shit_ we're in trouble. Y'know that little girl? The one Emu's been real worried about?"

"Vaguely."

"From what they're saying in there, I think she's the target, somehow."

"…Maybe we can hold him back. _M_ _aybe_ , if it's both of us at once, because last time, trying to stop him _did_ result in you dying." Kuroto grits his teeth. "Can't say I'm enthused about this alleged plan, but quite frankly, if I let an 8 year old succumb to Gamedeus, Emu would _probably_ be the next to snap."

"Most lik- gah!"

The conversation screeches to a halt as they come out of a tunnel, and a ninja drops down onto the hood of the car.

* * *

Oh, _great,_ he's using the enormous building-sized form. Well. No two ways about it. It doesn't help in the slightest that everyone else was knocked out of their most powerful forms in just one blow. Parad and Kuroto both run in, tanking the blast – Kuroto must have added some proper defenses into his suit, after he was brought down to two lives – one now, actually – and break apart into data to try and suppress Gamedeus's powers. Hopefully they can buy the doctors time to help that girl – what was her name? Madoka? That was it, Madoka.

In the moment before he leaps, Parad sends a desperate thought towards Emu. _"Help her! The origin gashat – use it like Kuroto did against me!"_

Everything goes black, after that.

* * *

' _-elp h-r! Th- origin gash- - -se it like - did -gainst me!'_

Emu can just barely make out what Parad's trying to say. They need to figure out how to use this telepathy thing on command, and fast.

Assuming they get the chance.

No, _no_ , he has to trust that whatever Parad and Kuroto are doing will work, and that they'll come back. For now, he has to do what he can.

* * *

"The only one who can give Madoka-chan the strength to live, and make her smile again… it's you, and you alone!"

He has to convince Mr Kagenari. He _has_ to, because this man went to these lengths already. He cares, and however misguided his attempts to help have, that's far more than so many kids can ever expect. So Emu _has_ to get this through his head.

And somehow, he does.

Next up… stopping Gamedeus, once again.

Oh, good, he was just in time! Parad and Kuroto aren't hurt when they're ejected from Gamedeus – well, not any more than they already had been.

"It's not over yet." Emu stands between his friends and the gargantuan bugster. "We'll defeat the last boss, and clear this game." Emu can _feel_ the grin as Parad gets up, and starts channeling power over to him.

"You really think you can defeat me, a god?!"

 _Maximum Mighty X! Hyper Muteki!_

"I'll change _all_ our fates, with my own hands! Hyper Dai Henshin!"

* * *

The group watches on as Ex-Aid takes off to fight Gamedeus.

 _Literally_ takes off. He's flying through the air, with seemingly minimal effort.

Taiga squints at the now distant speck of gold. "That's new."

Parad stares, wide eyed and bouncing on the balls of his feet. "Does anyone have a phone with a camera on them? We _need_ to record this, and I don't have one of my own yet."

Hiiro quietly hands his over. "…Did he just come back out of that skyscraper…?"

"Yep."

"After going vertically through it?"

"Yep!"

Both Hiiro and Taiga glance over at Kuroto. ""How durable did you _make_ that armor?!""

* * *

 _one week later_

"S-Sirs, I _can't_ be reading this correctly." Emu looks back and forth between the director, Secretary Hinata, and the paper in his hands. "You want _me_ to be- no, I'm sorry, there must be some sort of mistake here-"

"There's no mistake, Dr Hojo." Director Kagami gives Emu a slightly confused look. "You're being promoted to head of the cyber rescue unit."

"But- I- _why_?"

The secretary looks from his end of the conference call. "You… _are_ aware that you have essentially been performing in this role for the past several months, are you not?"

Emu stares blankly at him.

From the other end of the office table, Hiiro clears his throat. "Emu. You were basically _the_ person in charge during our conflict with Kamen Rider Chronicle and Dan Ma- Cronus." He quickly corrects himself, seeming to remember the particularly insistent way in which Emu and Parad insist on referring to Kuroto's father.

"Well, if we'd come at the situation from only the medical perspective or only the game perspective, it wouldn't have been possible to succeed, we needed both angles-"

"You are the only reason we were able to handle Maxima."

"Nobody else was available at first, I had to step up-"

" _E_ _mu_." Hiiro moves to place his hand on his shoulder. "I would really think that if neither of those achievements were enough, that your leading the post-Chronicle press conference would be proof."

"Wha- no, I was _assisting_ , Doctor Kyotaro was leading it! …Weren't you?"

Hinata takes a moment to gather himself before answering. "On paper, perhaps. But that was _your_ … 'show,' as it were."

Nobody appears impressed by Emu's muted noises of protest.

"…But. Head of a _department_?! _Me?!_ "

Parad scoffs from where he's been sitting in the background. "Emu! Pretty sure they're paying you a _compliment_. If you keep trying to turn it down, you're gonna have to go through some sort of 'self esteem' talk or something."

"R-right." Emu bows his head to the secretary. "Th-thank you, sirs."

"You're very welcome. Now, with regards to _M_ _r_. Hojo, in back…"

""Wait, what?""

Parad points at himself. "You mean me?!"

"Following the events with Maxima, we've managed to expedite the processing of your paperwork, and yesterday the official confirmation came in." Hinata folds his hands across his desk. "I believe congratulations are in order. You are now _legally_ Hojo Parad." Hinata continues on. "The paperwork for the residence is still processing, unfortunately, so there _will_ still be a few days before you're able to move into your new location, but once that has been settled, you're free to go."

The pair look at each other, stunned, before grinning in unison.


End file.
